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Saturday, January 11, 2014

When I got home this morning (Saturday), about 11:00, I discovered that water was flooding most of the first/ground floor from a frozen/burst supply line to one of the upstairs bathrooms.

Based on the fact that my (formerly beautiful) hardwood floors were just beginning to absorb water, and haven't yet warped or buckled, I'm thinking that the flooding was for hours, rather than for days. Shoot! If I had just come home last night, I might have caught it before any real damage.

As it is, much of the drywall in the front rooms of the house will have to be replaced. The antique double doors (they're actually old part of a panel of room-dividers from a church) into the LR are ruined. Many of my books are ruined. Granted, most of them are just science fiction and fantasy novels, but still! My wool carpets (area rugs) are soaked. The carpet in most of the upstairs is warping.

Oh, my! The books on the lower shelf of the bookcase which is pretty much just below the burst pipe have absorbed so much water that I can't get them out.

Just a few minutes ago, I discovered that the motor of the "squirrel cage" furnace-fan has broken loose from one of its three mountings. Thus, the fan is dragging on its housing and cannot turn. So, the furnace is now off ... and it's getting colder outside. I wonder whether the furnace not working properly may have contributed to my little disaster?

2014/02/18:
I just received word from the insurance agent that the insurance company isn't going to renew my homeowners policy.

Thursday, January 9, 2014

I've written about the 'Houben Case' in the context of strip-mining of human beings for vital organs to transplant into other (apparently, more important) human beings.

'Shadow To Light' used the reported facts of the case as the basis of a thought experiment concerning 'philosophy of mind', and which high-lights an important limitation of science, and of what if knowable via scince, one which the 'Science!' refuse to see.

Michael Egnor has a recent post to which I wish to draw Gentle Reader's attention, and also to a comment by 'Big Rich' that nails it -- Does Catholicism minus the Enlightenment equal the Inquisition?, which is in response to a piece by John Zmirak, in which is asserted that "Catholicism minus the Enlightenment equals the Inquisition."

As you may (or may not) know, I have no use for the Roman denomination; I think Christianity would be much improved were all Catholics to wash themselves of the effluvia of the Cloaca Maxima and become Protestants. That said, I wholly agree with Egnor that it is a "damnable lie" that "Catholicism minus the Enlightenment equals the Inquisition."; I also agree with him that the Inquisition itself is not inherently bad or immoral.

Does Catholicism minus the Enlightenment equal the Inquisition? The better and more obvious question is, does the Enlightenment without Christianity equal the holocaust? And the answer is, of course it does. It also equals the guillotines of the French Revolution, Mao's and Stalin's purges, America's forced sterilizations and the -- the greatest genocide perpetuated on mankind and done specifically in the name of enlightenment -- the slaughter of the unborn. The death toll which lays directly at the feet of an unrestrained enlightenment is the better part of a billion human lives, but according to sons of the Enlightenment like Peter Singer -- we need to be more dead bodies -- just not his or course.

Sunday, January 5, 2014

Sam Singer, spokesman for the Children's Hospital Oakland, has taken it upon himself to dictate the limits of hope and prayer.

Singer is one of the players in the gut wrenching saga of Jahi McMath, the 13-year-old Northern California girl who went in for a tonsillectomy and ended up brain dead. The second girl in two years to suffer severe brain damage under similar conditions at Children's Hospital Oakland, the case obviously has the hospital on the defensive.

In a jaw-dropping statement, made on behalf of the hospital, Mr. Singer, speaking with greater authority than anyone could have imagined, told the world: "There is, unfortunately, no amount of hope, no amount of prayer that can bring her back."

If Mr. Singer wants to tell us she is brain dead, fine. If he wants to tell us that an independent physician also declared her brain dead and "there was no question of that," - fine. She was indeed pronounced dead only three days after she underwent surgery to treat sleep apnea. The "complications" she suffered have not been detailed, but we do know she went into cardiac arrest. We also know that after an independent review of the case, a judge gave the go ahead to remove the life support that was keeping her alive. It was at this point that hospital spokesman Sam Singer threw down his theological gauntlet.
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It is not uncommon for medical miscalculations to be made, or for God to be underestimated. Just last year, a young man in the U.K. was declared brain dead by four specialists after he suffered devastating injuries in a car crash. His parents refused to give up hope, his father begged doctors to check again, and two weeks later faint signs of brain activity were detected. Seven weeks later, he was released from the hospital. If not for his parent's perseverance, he would be dead.

We don't know what will happen in the case of little Jahi McMath; but with every ounce of my being, and for the sake of everyone who dares to hope and pray for loved ones around the world, may God prove the doubters wrong once again and say "Talitha koum!" - "Little girl, I say to you, arise."

Whatever the outcome, may we never lose hope, nor our faith in the power of prayer - and may we never be guilty of that greater sin...causing others to lose theirs.

As one wag put it: "The problem with living in a less religious society isn’t that people don’t think about God but that they think God has a position in their bureaucracy (below theirs)."